Simon Stumpf, Director of Ashoka’s Fellow selection program in the U.S., shares how he seized his own opportunity to lead as pre-teen when family circumstances demanded and how he didn’t stop there. As a parent today facing a world of great change and challenges, he shares his thoughts on what it...

Ashoka Fellow since
Aug 2017

Uruguay

Vipermed

Ignacio is empowering people to take control over their own health by encouraging them to exercise their right to health education. He is trying to change the secondary role of patients in health institutions by giving them the knowledge to take decisions together with their health professionals.

Ashoka Fellow since
Jan 2018

India

Organization for Rare Diseases India

Prasanna is building an ecosystem to address the immediate and unmet needs of patients and families with rare diseases. By creating a unified coalition of stakeholders that includes the Public, Private and Citizen Sectors, he is introducing the social, physical and policy infrastructure that is...

Ashoka Fellow since
Aug 2017

“'Something happened',” Amina Evangelista Swanepoel pauses. “It was always how they explained their pregnancy: ‘My parents were away and my boyfriend came over and something happened and now I’m pregnant’.” Amina is talking about the female students of her mother, Susan Evangelista...

It began with the game of cricket and cell phones. Hilmi Quraishi recognized that together, cricket— the most popular sport in India—and cell phones, in the hands of 650 million Indians, could become a powerful health tool. In 2005, this observation led him to develop “Freedom HIV/AIDS.” A set of...

Ashoka Fellow since
Feb 2019

Through a comprehensive system that successfully brings together parents, teachers, social workers and psychologists, Michael is instilling and promoting resilience in high-risk, underserved children to recover from or positively adapt to adverse circumstances.

Ashoka Fellow since
Aug 2014

Megan founded Zana Africa to ensure that young girls are able to navigate with dignity their puberty years and accompanying challenges related to changes in their reproductive health by providing access to quality hygiene products, particularly underwear and sanitary pads, as well as creating safe...

Candice Lys is a newly appointed (2017) Canadian Ashoka Fellow, being recognized for her innovative approach to teaching sexual and mental health education to young Indigenous teens, starting first young women and recently expanding to include young men. She uses the arts to encourage a creative,...